Thinking about something else

Been listening to Neko Case’s “The Tigers Have Spoken” lately. It’s too short, but it’ll keep me until her new CD is released. Spent a little while wandering around iTunes (skeptical at first, but now a convert), and stumbled across Rosie Flores. More here.

Spinal obsession

Now it’s time for anxiety.

Saw the neurosurgeon on Thursday. Working from write-up on the MRI, it looked as if three weeks of intensive physical therapy might take care of things. Increased flexibility could help with the herniated disk and stenosis (C5-6) for now, but surgery might be down the road a ways.

Friday. Phone call. The MRI was delivered to the neurosurgeon’s office — now it looks as if PT would be a very bad idea. Besides the disk problem and enlarged vertebrae, my spinal cord is swollen.

This is a sign of spinal cord trauma. It seems I’d remember injuring my back to the point that the spinal cord would swell, but I can’t recall anything that would account for it, other than some jarring around while jet-skiing on the ocean last August. (The memorable injury during that trip was a serious sunburn that left me on crutches. Lesson: Sunscreen is for feet, too.)

According to the MRI, I should be in bone-crunching pain right now. We’re all baffled by this. Today it’s just the usual neck pinches, along with occasional crampish sensations in the back of my legs.

So now we’re looking at surgery ASAP. This coming week will bring an EMG, which tests the conductivity of the nerves (needles and electrodes in my arms), and a myelogram, which is a spinal tap with unpleasantness added (enforced immobility, dye that can lead to a week-long headache — all spread over a two day period).

If the test results are as expected, it’ll be surgery the following week.

I was not expecting this at all. Since yesterday I’ve been careening wildly between anxious and cranky. I’m overwhelmed with thinking about how to manage my classes while I’m out (how long will that be?), along with flashes from an overactive, highly visual imagination. I’m also hypervigilant in looking for signs of impending bone-crunching pain, even though the MRI was taken over a week ago. For all I know the swelling could have subsided by now.

But I’m allowing myself a day or so of panic. Then it’ll be time to channel it into actually getting some things accomplished so I can head into this without worries about my responsibilities.

Pain in the neck

For the past couple of years, I’ve been having problems with headaches. Some lasted a few hours, the worst went on for a couple of months. Along with the headaches I’d get knots in my shoulders, pains darting into my back, throbbing from the base of my skull, and an odd sniffing reflex.

First I ignored them, thinking they were visible signs of invisible stress. They didn’t go away. Then I read about headaches and computer monitors, thought about the head tipping required with my usual bifocals, and invested in single-vision computer glasses. Work was more comfortable, but the headaches continued. Looking up on the top shelf of the grocery store would set one off; some mornings I’d wake up with one; on other days it wouldn’t set in until the evening.

Nearly every day I’d have some kind of pain — neck, eyes, sinuses, across the top of my head, along my temples, down my back, always somewhere. The last one continued for two months, and after finding myself sitting in a meeting, holding my head, and apologizing for not being able to concentrate on what everyone was saying because I’d had the same headache since August, I finally decided to go to the doctor. This is always a last resort, because I’m self-aware enough to recognize my own hypochondria. Though blessed with good health, I’m also hyperaware of every little blip that my body goes through — I have to filter out the useful from the normal, and have poor judgment in figuring out what needs to be attended to.

My doctor immediately referred me to a neurologist. She was “worried” about the throbbing at the base of my skull. The neurologist, however, diagnosed it as the common occipital headache, and put me on medication. The muscle relaxants were, as always, quite nice in the beginning, but eventually left me depressed and unfocused. The anti-inflammatories created stomach problems — a serious obstacle for someone who has a phobia about throwing up. After several unpleasant weeks of side effects and continuing headaches I asked to be taken off the medication so I could try acupuncture instead. Years before it had knocked out a persistent case of sciatica, so it seemed a far better choice than these meds.

One hour of acupuncture: No headache. Though they’d return, they never lasted long and were far less painful. After a couple of months of treatment, the pain was contained to specific areas in my neck, and no longer interfered significantly with my life.

But just in time for the six-month followup with the neurologist, the pain started in again. Sometimes it felt like hot needles laid across my spine, other times my shoulders felt hard pinches that wouldn’t ease for long minutes at a time, and one 3am I awoke feeling a spike going directly from the base of my skull to my sinus. The neurologist prescribed more medication. I asked for an Xray instead to make sure this wasn’t something structural or degenerative. Surprisingly, he scheduled me for an MRI.

The diagnosis: Two problems. One of my disks has slipped a bit to the side. The other problem is spinal stenosis. The passages for the spinal column and the branching nerves are closing up, causing compression and inflammation. This explains the numb hands, achy arms and shoulders, electrical jolts when running, and especially the headaches. I’ve now been referred to a neurosurgeon, and odds are it’ll mean surgery.

Though it will be good to feel normal again — it’s been a long time since that was true — I’m uneasy about being opened up, especially having work done that high up on my spine. More after talking with the neurosurgeon.

Counting. Grrrr.

I’m still having trouble counting. Not counting, exactly, but tapping and playing at the same time. It’s purely a coordination issue — I can point to the notes while verbally counting, so it’s not a problem of not understanding notation. On simple tunes I can even play while counting out loud. But physically tapping while doing all the other things playing violin requires is still beyond my abilities. A couple of people have said it’ll just happen one day. Seems always tomorrow, though.

Right now we’re working on Handel’s Largo from Xerxes. It’s been frustrating, but I’m down to only about five measures that are giving serious trouble. Though I knew violin is often the lead instrument, I didn’t really know it until now. Of all of us — guitar, two cellos, viola, violin — I’m the one with the fewest skills. However, in this particular piece, the other instruments play what are essentially continuos, with the violin carrying the melody. They’ve been very patient while I mangle triplets and the endless variations of 3/4 time.

Yet another lesson learned: When everyone else is doing continuo, if I lose track of the melody, I’m screwed. It’s almost impossible to figure out where everyone else is.

We’re also starting to work on Bach’s Air on the G String. It’s doable, but progress comes only a measure at a time.

There’s a chance we’ll be playing a church rededication in the spring. Hoping to find some simple sacred music. Haydn’s Baryton trios have been suggested — simple and suitable for a church service.

A dream

The night before last I had a dream about my mother. She died in May, twelve years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. My father had taken care of her all that time, determined to keep her from a nursing home. There’s a story there, but I’m not quite ready to tell it.

My father and I were with her at the end, and with the help of hospice were able to help ease her passing.

In the dream she had returned. We both knew she had passed away, but we were sitting at a table in a kitchen, making chocolate chip cookies, talking about nothing. She was in a dark blue suit, dressed as if for church, her now dark hair perfectly arranged. We sat and talked, pinching dough and laying it out on cookie sheets, talking about the children she had taken care of, now adults. She flashed the same crooked, restrained smile I’d grown up with, explaining that she thought it was “silly” that they sent her Mother’s Day cards, thanking her for doing what she’d done so many years ago. I said they were right, that she was their mom, too, and the fact that they believed it made it true.

In the dream this all felt perfectly normal — nothing strange about her coming back to make cookies, and it felt as if our random conversation picked up where it had left off years ago.

But in waking life it’s more complicated. Now it’s easier to remember the way she looked before she became ill, to remember her voice, her expressions and gestures. It feels like part of her really has returned, but I feel the loss even more.